Smrt Lernins

I’m very excited to say that I will be teaching again starting in the fall! I really enjoyed the two semesters I spent teaching writing through the various co-ops, and I’ve been looking for a venue to teach again. I won’t be teaching writing in the ‘11-’12 year, though. I’ll be teaching blogging and “digital literacy.”

Here are my course descriptions from the online catalogue, if you can indulge me a bit, for Digital Literacy:

Email, instant messenger, Facebook, forums, blogs – our children have so many ways to reach out to other people with similar interests and wide array of backgrounds. Being online means being part of a large and vibrant community, but like any community, the online world has its own rules, social expectations, and occasional dangerous elements. Do your children have the skills they need to be smart and safe digital citizens?

Digital literacy is the ability to locate, organize, understand, evaluate, and analyze information using digital technology. More than that, it’s the knowledge of how to traverse the Internet safely, how to interact with others online in a way that is polite and appropriate, and what information they should or shouldn’t share. Students will learn the basics of email, safe web navigation, distinguishing between reliable and unreliable websites (a useful tool for research), online etiquette, and how to be a responsible online “citizen.”

And Blogging 101:

Are your children reluctant writers? Are they technophiles who are more comfortable behind a computer than in front of a crowd? Do they have a lot of subject-area knowledge they would like to share with others? Blogging is the perfect format to let them share their thoughts and to develop their passion for writing!

Blogging is a meaningful way to add your voice to the Great Conversation happening all around us. Students will establish and maintain a personal blog, participate in a class blog, learn basics of HTML, and generate content for their blogs that includes text, links, and embedded images and videos. They will learn online etiquette as they comment on others’ blogs and manage comments on their own blogs (with adult guidance). Parents will be provided links to class blogs and access to their students’ blogging accounts (unless declined).

Yeah, they’re a little hokey, but the point is to get parents to want to enroll their children, right? Plus, I really do believe blogging is both valid and valuable (perhaps especially for homeschoolers). I may have mentioned before that I spent two years working for a NCLB-funded grant initiative called Blog2Learn, where I taught middle and high school teachers how to integrate blogging into their (mostly low performing/at risk) classrooms. We had a lot of success with the program in terms of increasing writing output and improving writing quality. I’ve also taught a grown-up version of Blogging 101 (and the follow up, predictably called Blogging 102) at conferences. I feel pretty comfortable and competent in this area.

If I get parental consent, I may share some links to students’ blogs or to our class blog over the course of the school year, starting in the fall. Hopefully you’ll indulge me a little and give them some positive feedback.

So, I’ve been doing this whole blogging thing for about 13 months now, and am now (including this post) two posts shy of my 300th post! I think that calls for some manner of celebration. Perhaps I’ll bake a pan of these (because while I’m not all that gaga for The Pioneer Woman, I am pretty darn gaga for cinnamon rolls).

I’m also at close to 2000 non-spam comments! You like me! You really like me! Or you hate me, which, in the blogosphere, plays out in about the same way — lots of comments, some relinking, a little smack-talking (or a little butt-smacking, whatever floats your barges) and a great conversation.

I’ve covered a few controversial topics that generated some great discussion (seriously, who know that libraries were such a source of passionate debate?). I’ve written a lot more humdrum posts that generated one or two half-hearted “sounds like a great day” comments. I’ve made one post that resulted in a flood of spam from angry WAHMs who could benefit from a copyeditor (though, who couldn’t?) and some Xanax. I’ve discovered that some homeschoolers feel very strongly about their commas, their choice of dictionaries, and the word “teach”.

Now what?

I’d like to get back to regular “Ask a [Smrt] Homeschooler” and Secular Thursday posts. I want to finish the Secular Homeschool Archetypes series. I want to get back into a habit of reading and commenting on everyone else’s blog (in fact, comment with your favorite post you’ve ever written on YOUR blog so I can read it!) and have some more guest posts.

What else? Where do I go from here? What makes a blog interesting these days?

I always feel flattered when one of my posts inspires YOU to post something, especially if your experiences and opinions are very different from my. Remember, out here in the blogosphere, we’re part of the Great Blog Conversation. Dialogue is what it’s all about.

With that thought in mind, I’d like to point you to two bloggers who have written posts in response to our conversations here. If you need some new blogs to read, why not check them out and put them on your reading list? Consider this the first in a series of “Getting to Know You” posts, where I steer you towards some blogs you might not be reading, but should be.

Cara at Peanuts are Evil responded to my post about why I don’t rely on public libraries for homeschooling by sharing why she loves the public library. She has great rationale for why she loves the library and some good advice for those of you who would like to make the public library work for you as a homeschooler (or otherwise). Check her out! You’re guaranteed to learn something.

Deb at Not Inadequate expanded, beautifully, on the concept behind my post about the “right and duty to learn” and has some great links to share. Read and be inspired to write!

I’m making some changes to Smrt Lernins to make it a little more user-friendly:

I will be making some additional changes over the coming weeks, but if you have any suggestions of things that could make the Smrt Lernins blog experience better for you, please let me know!

Someone *coughFourSquarescough* suggested that Fridays should become “Eff Off Fridays” at Smrt Lernins. While it’s true that I have a gradually increasing list of individuals who feel the need to rain teetee down upon my joyful blogging parade, and that those individuals certainly deserve a great big bucket full of Southern-style “how nice” and a blessing of their little hearts, I can’t quite muster up the energy to write a truly eloquent “eff off” post.

What I can tell you all to do, however, is to eff off and read.

That’s right, y’all. Get the eff off of my blog and go do some reading. Here are my suggestions:

For you homeschoolers who have never experienced public school life, I offer you the exceptionally amusing ellemennoppee: The Everyday Life of Miss P, Substitute Teacher Extraordinaire, because, really, whose life can’t be made better through reading things like, “Today in 4th grade, a shirtless genie on a math worksheet was given boobs.” I strongly recommend you not be drinking something while reading this blog. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Ok, Daisy, consider this your disclaimer, because if there’s ever a person whose blog you should NOT read, it’s The Bloggess. If you aren’t Daisy, however, you might be interested in learning about this high school student’s chemisty paper on tin.

The leap from two children to three children is quite a leap. One of my favorite mommy-bloggers, DaMomma, knows it well. Also, very little in this world is funnier than the mental image of a toddler with a Boston accent saying “penis” at inappropriate times.

Now, read those blogs, change your big girl panties (’cause you probably wet them with all the laughing), wipe off your screen (because even those I warned you not to drink while you were reading, you probably were), and go stroke my ego by becoming a fan of Smrt Lernins on Facebook.

I’m sometimes amused by some of the ways in which people stumble across my blog. I use Google Analytics to track my site statistics, so I get a nice breakdown of search terms used to find my site. While I’m usually glad to grab a new reader, I’m not sure I’m really the site that some of these people are searching for in their great Googling adventures.

The search terms may be completely straightforward:

smrt lernins
smrt lernins blog
smrt mama
smrt learnings
patchfire eclectic girl (who was looking for you and got me instead, Patchfire?)

Sometimes the search terms are curricula-centered:

mct grammar
can abeka be secular?
building poems m clay
ellen mchenry “the brain” homeschool
compare just write and writing strands
life of fred math overly christian
jesus in math class/jesus mathematics/jesus math/bible verses on mathematics (four separate searches)

Sometimes, the searcher clearly has…let’s just call them “strong feelings” on certain topics:

unschooling failure (well, yes, I do give some examples of that here)
are there unschoolers that are not hippies (yes, but the other unschoolers killed and ate them)
being unschooled did not prepare me (Am I the only one who is terribly curious for what this searcher was unprepared?)
are home schooled children to sheltered (My answer: No, but they are able to distinguish between “to” and “too”)
homeschooler sheltered (also “sheltered homeschooler”)
pitfalls of unschooling (better than “pit traps of unschooling”)
unschooling idiocy (this works on a few levels, so please feel free to insert your own joke here)

And finally, the downright bizarre:

“a lot of pee” (their quotes!)
captain underpants valuable lessons learned (lesson learned: Don’t read Captain Underpants)
lern sex (No! Learn spelling!)
distilling urine (Ok, fair enough. I do have a post tagged with this)
etymology of sexy (I’m pretty sure it derives from the word “sex”)
in the event of this tough situation (break glass, remove homeschooler)
seculat thrusday (yes, I know this is just a matter of typos, but what a glorious combination of typos!)
why is math hard for pretty girls (because God doesn’t give with both hands)

Then there’s the one search that really tugs at my heart strings, because I could have been the one who searched for it about a year ago:

homeschooling parents who feel panic and anxiety (You aren’t the only one out there! I’m here! You aren’t alone!)

If you found my site through a search engine, how did you get here? If you were searching for my site, what do you think you’d search for?

SO, LisaB/TaderDoodles of Too Busy 2 Clean gifted me with my first blogging award, the Beautiful Blogger Award (which seems to be more of an award of blogging sisterhood more than a denotation of content of particular merit, but hey, I’ll take it!) which brings with it a few dangling strings. The first is simple, to thank the kind giver of this award, which I can do most genuinely. Thank you, Lisa/Tader! It gave me the warm toe-wigglies!

The other rules require a little more effort on my part and tolerance on yours, so please indulge me for a moment here:

Here are rules to accepting the nomination:

1. Thank the person who nominated you
2. Copy the award and paste it on your blog
3. Link to the person who nominated you for the award
4. List 7 interesting things about yourself
5. Nominate 7 beautiful bloggers

Seven interesting things about myself? Hmm. That’s a toughie! I’m shooting from the hip here, so please hold your incredulity or annoyance until the end:

1. My eyesight is so bad (-9.5/-10.0, severely astigmatic) that I’m not a candidate for Lasik. The myopia part is correctable with content, but not the astigmatism, so my depth perception tends to be pretty wonky and/or nonexistent at times.
2. I’ve been to England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Italy, Austria, and Hungary, but not Canada or Mexico.
3. I can write in cursive with my toes.
4. I have been told (by a professor of Middle English literature) that I have flawless Middle English pronunciation.
5. Two of my three children were both at home, unassisted, in my master bathroom (on purpose).
6. My writing credits include role-playing game supplements about cults and articles about multi-cultural hair and skin care. Yes, a little bit of breadth there.
7. I don’t have a single email in my inbox right now and it makes me feel absurdly powerful.

I read the blogs of many lovely homeschoolers from all walks of life. They’re religious and they’re secular. They have many children or just one or two. They have beliefs very much like mine or vastly different. I think they’re all absolutely spiffy and delightful, so choosing just seven was an impossible task. That said, the seven Beautiful Bloggers I nominate are:

Daisy at The Quiet Life
The Mama at Concordia Classical Academy
Heathen Mom at Heathen Homeschoolers
Foursquares
Jenn at Classless and Lovin’ It
Saille at Grassroots Homeschool
Summer at Grace from Above

Patchfire didn’t make the list because she was nominated by someone recently.

When one is a liberal, secular, rigorous home educator with the inability to control one’s virtual mouth, I suppose the potential for controversy runs pretty high. I’ve never been a punch-puller or an eggshell-walker. That’s part of what makes me a great advocate and activist in several non-homeschooling areas (which I generally opt not to blog about here, though I might some day, especially if someone were to express any interest). It also makes me a great target for those who don’t cotton to any form of criticism.

I’m perfectly fine with being called judgmental, because I don’t find judgment to be a bad thing to exercise. There’s nothing wrong with setting reasonable standards of behavior, based on your experiences and ethics/morality, for the people you allow into your life. I will most certainly judge someone based on their words, actions, and/or choices. I don’t have a high tolerance for certain types of jackassery or tomfoolery, but I also don’t expect a high degree of tolerance from others. If my own brands of jackassery and tomfoolery offend you, feel free to judge.

I will not tiptoe around certain subjects, simply because someone’s feelings might be hurt when I knock their choices — choices being the key word here. Once you make the choice to think or act in a certain way, you need to be ready to stand for those choices. Own them. That means owning the fact that not everyone will approve of those choices, and developing coping mechanisms for that disapproval. “Bad choices” vs. “good choices” may be subjective, but when we make our choices public, we are willingly subjecting them to the praise or criticism of others.

I am comfortable with my own concepts of “good” and “bad” choices. I don’t expect yours to be the same, nor do I expect to change your mind or anyone else’s, but I’m not going to dance around a subject out of fear that your morals and ethics aren’t like mine. As such, I have no problem writing or reading controversial posts about:

Philosophies or ideologies
Schooling methods
Parenting choices
Family dynamics (such as valuing sons over daughters)
Religious beliefs and practices, or lack thereof
Public behavior (like making a fool of yourself at a peewee football game)

In all these areas, you have a choice. If I think that choice is dumb, I’ll probably say something (though I’m most likely going to say it here, not on your blog, because I don’t like kicking up a fuss in someone else’s yard). You have ultimate control over those areas. You can change any one of them. Because it’s something over which you have power, and because it’s something you choose to make public, it’s something I feel is within the purview of public criticism. I don’t expect any different from you, however, and I won’t get my pretty plus-sized panties in a wad because you criticize me in those areas. Perhaps you have more grace that I or you ascribe to the notion of never judging anyone, ever, no matter how off the charts their actions may be, mote/beam and all that. If you don’t have something nice to say, however, you’re still perfectly welcome to come sit by me.

I’m not going to write (or speak) negatively about someone on the basis of their race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, abilities/disabilities, physical features (including height and weight), sex, gender, sexual orientation, or any other aspect intrinsic to their being. I believe humans inherently have worth, regardless of what they look like, their roots, or who they love. I won’t tolerate sexist, racist, homophobic, or other bigoted comments*. You’re spared those particular offenses on this blog and I won’t participate in a discussion where that kind of language is bandied about. I won’t waste my time on a bigot.

It’s also worth noting that when I write with “flowery prose and glittering generalities”** about systems and methods and organizations, I am aware there are real, individual people within those, with many individual merits, to whom those generalities don’t apply. I am able to think the idea of young earth creationism is rather ludicrous, while simultaneously having great respect for the intelligence and humor of an individual who believes in a young earth. I can think unschooling is a flawed educational philosophy overall, while acknowledging the well-brought-up and well-educated children that resulted from a particular unschooler’s implementation of that philosophy.

Most importantly, I know I am as absurd as any of you, probably more so. The very basis of this blog was to lay bare my own inadequacies as a homeschooler, mother, and person for the sake of personal introspection, community dialog, or a good old fashioned point and laugh. I am an innately flawed individual, inviting critique and even criticism through my decision to blog about my thoughts and experiences. I won’t cry, stomp my feet, throw a hissy, delete your comments, or come throw stones at you in your own blog if I don’t like what you have to say about me. If someone’s laughing at me, I’m probably laughing at me longer and louder. I don’t dish what I can’t take. I don’t dish what I don’t dish at myself.

Them there’s the ground rules, folks, straight up and on the level. I’ve never been particularly good at subtlety. I am what I am, like it or lump it. If you find yourself offended, just move right along, because this isn’t the blog for you. If you find yourself wanting to take me to task, however, step on up to the plate. You throw it and I’ll swing at it, and we’ll let the other readers decide whether I hit, miss, or foul out.

*To be perfectly honest, I will put up with a teensy tad of Yankee-bashing, but only because the victor writes the history and they’ve had a good 100+ years of Southern-bashing and making fun of my accent to build up a little karma.
**As my AP US History teachers use to accuse us of slipping into our papers.

I’ve signed up to participate in National Blog Posting Month (see the little dealy in the side bar on the right?), so I now have absolutely nothing to write about, naturally. I suppose it seems reasonable to blog about blogging in general as an official kickoff off NaBloPoMo (not a portmanteau of my own devising, I assure you).

Since I seldom write about My Life Prior to Homeschooling™ here, I’m sure I haven’t mentioned that I used to be a part of a NCLB-funded grant program, run through the journalism department of my local university, that involved teaching middle and high school teachers how to blog and integrate blogging into their classrooms. My job was to actually teach the teachers how to set up their blogs and give suggestions as to how they could use them. I helped set up student blogs. I encouraged developing a blogging community between teachers, both interschool and intraschool. Unfortunately, most of the teachers were unwilling to exert the kind of effort needed to use the blog effectively, and the project tended to fizzle out by the end of each school year, leaving us to start from scratch with the next year’s batch of teachers. After two years of this, I decided not to re-up as a contractor with the program.

During that time, however, I did develop a huge appreciate for the role blogging could play in education, both for teachers and for students. Now that I am homeschooling, I find blogging to be a useful tool in several ways, as an outlet for emotion, a mean of recording experiences, a networking opportunity, and on down the line.

So, why should homeschoolers blog? Here are some ways that blogging may be helpful to you as a homeschooler:

These are just a few suggestions of ways to use your blog as a tool to help make your homeschooling experience better. I’m sure you can think of many more. How do you use your homeschooling blog?